Intel leapfrogs ARM (for now) with Atom server SoC

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Leaping ahead of a growing onslaught of ARM server SoCs, Intel Corp. rolled out its dual-core, 64-bit Atom enterprise SoC, claiming 20 design wins in microservers, comms and storage. It also said it will pack an Ethernet fabric on to its next-generation, Avoton, a 22-nm chip shipping in 2013 that is expected to use out-of-order cores for greater performance.

The move puts Intel well ahead of a half-dozen ARM-based competitors, none of which will have 64-bit chips until sometime in 2013. Even those who have working 32-bit chips now have far fewer design wins.

Intel claims the new S1200 chip, dubbed Centerton, displaces the PowerPC in a comms control plane design and ARM in a storage system. The design wins span a range of top-tier OEMs to little known names, including Accusys, CETC, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, Inspur, Microsan, Qsan, Quanta, Supermicro and Wiwynn.

Many in the ARM camp have committed to 64-bit products which likely won't enter volume production until 2014. Intel vowed to provide annual upgrades of its new Atom enterprise SoC line, including a 14-nm part to come as early as 2014.

“This doesn’t have a big impact on the ARM 64-bit players because they have developed their road maps with Intel’s Centerton and Avoton in mind,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal of Moor Insights and Strategy (Austin, Texas). The new Atom chip, “will not be lowest power or densest solution compared with ARM-based solutions from Calxeda, Applied Micro or AMD,” he added.

There will be unrelenting pressure on cloud service providers to use the most energy efficient architectures. To fail to do so will be terminal to their long term plans. Most of them already know this and are watching the low power race with keen interest. Charlie Babcock, editor at large, InformationWeek

We need to stop confusing low power with energy efficient. If a system runs a job at 50W for 2 hours it is NOT energy efficient vs. a system that runs the same job at 100W for 30 minutes. That's where we are on microservers vs. servers.

Unit cost $54, and that's just the CPU---the complete system will require a chipset, whereas ARM tends to be a more integrated SoC requiring less components.
That says it all.... they aren't really interested in microservers.

Isn't it a SoC? There is no chipset listed in the specifications of Quanta STRATOS S900-X31, http://www.qsscit.com/en/01_product/02_detail.php?mid=27&sid=155&id=156&qs=94. Quanta QCT claims less than 10W per node.

Intel leap frog an over statement?
Whether 32 or 64 bit ARMS on blade is viable high margin business and can compete with Xeon with system management.
And it’s not issue of wimpy ARM, but crippled ARM given architectural enhancement that can make a StrongARM. ARM architectural license is advantageous over design license.
ARM community places scalar ARM at ˝ perf of Intel dual issue. ARM 64 bit super speculated closing processing gap on freq v ATOM.
Seven 32 bit ARM 1.1 GHz quads equal one Xeon 2620 hexa 2.0 GHz in this Intel loaded molecular docking benchmark; http://www.lowpowerservers.com/?p=141. Need to email reviewer because it’s not clear how many Calxeda quads were thrashed in loaded benchmark verse dual Xeon 2620’s. And how likely does Vina code for molecular docking require FPU?
Xeon 2620 sells for $410 in 1,000 unit quantities. Not taking into account added system blocks that are BSM, I/O, NIC, Calxeda silicon is then valued at $59 which flies under Intel average fixed cost. But wait, might those Calxeda quads running 55% the frequency of 2620 be valued at $114? On hexa core equal basis $171? With BSM, I/O, NIC $198 placing Energy Core at Intel average total cost. Meaning there is a value message here for ARM SOCs that is not getting through.
For multiple ARMS on blade analyst suspects will reach into high end XEON product performance and price rungs.
Subsequently dual core ATOM S1200 presents solely low power paper tiger. Octa ATOM on low power multi core seems more likely an Intel barrier to protect higher power Xeon product and price voids certainly into E3, into E5 & even 46xx for massive dense where ARM NIC in SOC across fabric in VM mode is aimed to resolve Xeon power utilization issue. And what about ARM 64 bit sporting 12 and 16 cores v Intel?
ARMs on blade is a viable high margin business.
Mike Bruzzone
Camp Marketing

Yes, the ARM should be consider as high margin business, especially when you take the performance/dollar into consideration.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/13/xeon_vs_calxeda_arm_apache_bench/
It seems would take 7 EXC-1000 to compete the E3-1220L v2 (17w, 189$) in apachebench (the ideal case for microserver). So, it seems it take 400$ for ARM server to achieve a 189$ Xeon server's microserver friendly workload.
What a nice margin:)

Calxeda's marketing lead notes that Intel's 6W Centerton has only two cores and lacks support for Ethernet, Serial ATA and a fabric.
But then Calxeda's ~4W four-core chip lacks support for 64-bit addressing which is a must for most server apps.

Why is 64bit a must for server apps? Do most server apps require more than 4Gb of memory?
I suspect that this '64bit is must for servers' is a received wisdom we accept because with Intel x86 processors, 64bit doubles (or better) performance. I suspect a lot of that is the extra registers available in X_64 mode. ARMs don't suffer the register starvation of x86 in 32bit mode, so the performance increase going to 64bit will be less compelling that for x86.

Rick:
There's no one in the connected community denying 64 bit is not a prerequisite for commercial server.
Every ARM silicon and system design producer agrees with the 64 bit observation and you're aware those 64 bit developments are underway.
So how about an investigative report on ARM server progress at current 32 bit boot strap aimed for 64 bit growth?
The industry could sure use some independent design producer successes that enable unique and differentiated product utilities, supporting innovative use models adding margin values for the greater good of the business.
With Intel executives positioning to take out half the industry, isn't it time to support adoption of components and platform designs beyond a monopoly that now blatantly threatens to destroy the industry by concentrating out competitive innovation?
Surely some silicon, system, software, data center types could fill us in on the development chains perspective.
There is currently software systems integration addressing 32 bit implementations for NAS, home, small work group and slim work loads that Intel does not address.
This current quarter happens to be the E5 26xx volume peak, at approximately 20 million units, so why get 64 bit dumped on now?
Mike Bruzzone
Camp Marketing

please, really read the article. It's the comparison between EXC-1000 and crippled E3-1220L v2.
And by the way, it's 1 Exc-1000 performance as 1/7 of XEON. And only in the perfect scaling case can 7 EXC-1000 sacle up linearly and match 1 E3-1220L v2. This can (if possible) only happened at certain work load and certain situation(Apache, Mapreduce?) and without any software overhead. And don't forget the cost and energy to connect 7 CPUs are not ignorable.

The S1200 has a significantly faster clock and more HW thread contexts than its ARM competition; the former almost guarantees that the S1200 will have a higher TDP than the slower clocked A9s.
Can the ARM vendors describe their NEON implementation and how its stacks up to SSE3? Can they show us how their microserver cores perform on SPEC2000/2006 FP and INT? Can they tell us which toolchain developers can use that can match Intel's toolchain?

Interesting, though they might refuse to acknowledge, because of ARM they are forced to innovate and bring out low cost solutions to server market which are also performance competitive. This is going to cannibalize their Xeon share to an extent which again they wont admit. With ARM it is not just raw performance that matters, it is that their is a good alternative for businesses who cannot afford an Intel SOC for their server requirements.
ARM is here to stay even if it will not win the war.